'Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts.’ Romans 5:5
Friends, six years ago we arrived at St George’s—Natalie and I—and we were two. However, six years ago this August Amelie arrived and made us three. Which means six years ago I became a father twice. I first became the spiritual father of this parish and then I became the legal father of a baby girl. My life since those moments has been to try and make sure I do both those fatherhoods well. Today, as you’ll know, is Father’s Day a good day for to be thinking about how we parent and a good day to be thinking about our Father in Heaven. Today is also Trinity Sunday, the Sunday when we dive into the deep water of who God is and try not to drown. And when you’re trying to learn the basics—whether of being a father, being a Christian or thinking about who God is—it helps to start at the beginning.
A few years ago now we began at the beginning. A few years back we started studying the Bible in Genesis and there we found three important truths that I want to draw on today. Our first truth is that before everything, before anything, there was God… and we’ll come to Him in a moment. The second truth, when God created the summit of His Creation were human beings and we read that: ‘God made us in His image.’ Just pause on that for a moment… what does it mean for us to be made in God’s image? It doesn’t mean that we look like God, it means that here is God who can think and he made us to think, he gave us an intellect. Here is God who can choose and He gave us the ability to choose, to freely decide how we live. Here is God who creates and who gave us with the ability to create, to design, to innovate, to produce great art. Okay, so that was Genesis 1 and our first two important truths. And then in Genesis 2, we find our third truth, when God makes a profound statement which goes to the heart of many modern problems, whilst also giving us an insight into the very heart of the One in whose image we are made. He said: ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’ Now bear in mind that when God says this it is before the Fall, it is before everything went wrong. So Adam might be alone but he is not lonely. Adam has everything that he needs, he has work, and food, and space to think, the ability to choose, and the opportunity to create. Adam has everything he needs and so Adam isn’t lonely. So what is Adam missing? And the answer is in today’s celebration, in today’s feast, the Feast of the Holy Trinity.
The Trinity is the centre of our entire Faith. This mystery that is so central, so important, so foundational for everything else is this: God is one God and three divine persons. Everything else flows from who God is. All the other doctrines—as important as they are—are really about what God has done for us or what God is doing for us. The Trinity is central because it is about who God is in Himself. We say this every Sunday, don’t we in the Creed, we’ll do it again in a minute. We say: ‘We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth’. Then we go on to say: ‘We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ’ who is what: ‘God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.’ So here we gave God the Father and God the Son who are equal, who have always existed, who are not the same in person but the same in substance… the same God. If your mind isn’t fully blown yet we then go on to say: ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit […] who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.’ In other words the Holy Spirit, who is a different person from either the Father or the Son, is fully God too. There is the Father who is God, there is the Son who is God, there is the Spirit who is God. However, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Now if you have a headache right now I understand it. If you’re thinking “you’re speaking English I’m sure but I just don’t understand it it’s just a jumble”, I get it! If that’s where you are this morning then frankly you’re in good company. St Augustine—who is the theologian who has most shaped the Western Church—was thinking about the Trinity, he was trying to get his head round it and he was stuck, so, what did he do? He took a break. Augustine took a break and went for a walk down on the beach. And as he was walking along he saw a boy digging a hole. He sat down and watched the boy for a bit and saw the boy take a bowl out to the sea fill it up and then take the water and pour it into the hole. Then the boy repeated this again and again. Eventually Augustine went up to him and said ‘What are you doing?’ And the boy said, ‘I’m emptying the sea into this hole that I dug.’ And Augustine smiled and said, ‘Silly kid, you couldn’t possibly empty the entire sea into this small hole that you dug’. The story goes that the boy stopped, looked at Augustine and said: ‘And neither could you possibly hope to fit the infinite and unfathomable God into your finite and limited mind.'
Ok, so let’s make it as simple as we can: God is one ‘what’ and three ‘whos’. You know back in the beginning of Genesis you get a glimpse of the Trinity. You get God who was there in the beginning, that’s God the Father; then you get the wind, the spirit, hovering over the waters, that’s the Holy Spirit; and then you get ‘God said’, a Word was spoken and that was God the Son. However, if you just read Genesis 1 understandably you’d miss this. Jewish people studied this for centuries and understandably didn’t see this. It took Jesus coming to make sense of this. When Jesus came He revealed that He was the Son from all eternity… which means that God the Father was the father from all eternity… which means that God the Holy Spirit—the love between Father and Son—has existed from all eternity. Right there is the innermost secret of God. So, if you’ve switched off, if you’re thinking about the lunch, or the weather, or if there is cake after the service, then switch back on. The innermost secret of God is this: that forever and ever the three Persons of God have been giving and receiving love. Ok, maybe you hear that and are like ‘well, duh, I know that, everyone knows God is love.’ However, here is the thing, we can’t know that without Jesus. Why? Because we’re not just saying God loves, that God just goes about loving, we’re saying God is love! If God was just one person one divine being—like Islam says, and like some other belief systems say—then God couldn’t be love. Love could be something He did, but only if God is a communion of persons—now ‘what’ and three ‘whos’—can He actually be love. Because God is three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existing forever—we can say that God has always been love. The Father has always loved the Son, the Son has always loved the Father. God is Love. Here is where it becomes so, so relevant to you: in whose image have you been made? Why wasn’t it good for Adam to be alone even though everything else was perfect? Because Adam—like you and me—was made in God’s image and therefore made to love and to be loved. You are made for love. You are made to love other people like the Father loves the Son, like the Son loves you and me. So here is the thing, to be complete, to be happy, to be who we’re meant to be, we need each other. The Trinity reveals the secret of God that God is love but the Trinity also reveals the innermost secret of you and me. That we’re made for love. That we need each other, not just to be sane and healthy, but in order to be fully ourselves!
We’re coming to the end, but here is the thing, here is the challenge: you all need each other, not just to get into a good church school, not just to keep the building open, not just to get through a vacancy without a Vicar… you all need each other in order to be the people you were made to be. So, on this Trinity Sunday be love to one another! On this Father’s Day be love to one another. And as we go—myself, Natalie and Amelie—let that be your parting gift to us, that you love one another now and always. Amen.